Why Change

Created by Zach Groshell @ Education Rickshaw

As I was connecting and interacting with my PLN this week on Twitter, the image to the left quickly caught my attention. All across the country and globe, educators are crying out for education reform - reform in what classrooms look like, what student engagement feels like, and how educators can make the changes in their own classrooms.

This image is perhaps the best I have seen that demonstrates how students learn using a variety of learning and teaching strategies. Rather than the one size fits all approach of traditional lecture (or drill and kill approach), learning today consists of project-based learning, self-guided learning, collaborative group learning, standards-based assessment, and is infused with a variety of technology that grows farther than we can see. Learning is no longer confined to what students can take in and regurgitate on a test. No, it happens at various times and through various modes.

Yet, if the right-half of the image is so accurate of what teaching and learning SHOULD look like, why are so many educators resistant to changing from their traditional methods of instruction? While the answer is packed with numerous excuses and finger pointing of blame, the harsh reality is that teaching by methods demonstrated in the right-half is much more difficult. Pulling up a powerpoint, or wiping a transparency clean from last year is so much easier for me to do as a teacher. I've taught this way for 10, 20, or 30 years and it's easier for me to be prepared this way!

While I don't think I can argue against that statement, I do wonder where the student-centered mentality was lost. There is no doubt that preparing an engaging and innovative classroom today is far more difficult than in the past. Yet, it's also far more rewarding. Watching students work collaboratively, critically thinking about solutions, and finding creative ways to share their results is far more rewarding than an exam score. But for educators, it takes time to build a classroom environment that promotes these skills, while also trusting that students will take ownership for their learning.

As a flipped educator of over 5 years, I can admit I needed to learn how to relinquish the power of holding students accountable. I started by checking daily work with students and making sure they watched video lectures. What I quickly learned, though, was that students knew what they needed better than I did. Some could watch the first 5 minutes and be successful. Others need to watch the lesson 2-3 times before being comfortable. And ultimately, my goal was focused on students mastering a skill. What did it matter how much time they spent on the video if in the end they could demonstrate that mastery.

As a result, students needed me less...less of my instruction, less of my guidance, and less of my expertise. They needed me to provide the sandbox and the toys, but not tell them which toy to use. They needed help in developing communication skills, creativity, and character. They needed me to help them think about ideas differently and encourage them to take risks, even fail, and learn from their failures and successes. I realized the role I needed to play was much different from how I learned when I went to school. And designing these avenues for students and being prepared for the multitude of questions unrelated to math took me a lot of time to learn and master. It was not easy by any stretch of the imagination. But it was far more rewarding to witness students learn and grow throughout the semester.

And why did I decide to make that change? Why am I encouraging others to do the same? George Curous states it best in his blog The Principal of Change

Time to Teach Compassion

There are no words that describe the horrific details of the events that recently happened in South Florida. There is no such thing as the 'right words' to console hurt souls and hearts of students, parents, teachers and a community. What should have never happened, did. As leaders and educators try to learn from this event and put legislation into place to protect students, I am dismayed at the finger-pointing and blame I continue to see span across social media. Why is it so hard that ALL of us have contributed to this paralyzing event? 

I am reminded of a recent conversation I had at a conference with other faculty. I was sharing my approach to Flipped Learning and the intentional design I used to foster the 4-C's of learning - Collaboration, Creativity, Choice, and Character. And as I was sharing how I allowed students the choice of self selecting their level of confidence after watching a video, which in turn selected the type of practice they would work on each day, a few puzzled looks were sent in my direction.

"You mean you asked students to identify if they were felt they were in the basic, average, or advanced group each day," asked one of the faculty? "Doesn't that imply dumb and smart groups," joked another. It was in this moment that I recognized even these individuals lacked compassion for each and every student. "How did you handle when other students would point out or make fun of someone for being in the dumb group," questioned the other faculty? All I could do was shake my head. While it would be easy to simply refute their questions and prove to this group that their beliefs were wrong, I shared the following example from one of my classes. 

Of course this happened occasionally in my classroom. More often, it happened during the first chapter we were studying. And when it did, I took every advantage I had to create a teachable moment with my students - a lesson on compassion for others. You see, we cannot predict what someone else has encountered along their journey to come to school each and every day. We have no idea if their parents were fighting, if their grandmother is dying, if their pet is lost, or if they were sick and struggling to keep up. Instead of pointing fingers. laughing, and mocking those individuals that choose to go into the basic group, why don't we offer them a helping hand? Why don't we ask them if there's some way we can help, be it personally or with school. That's the lesson and reminder I teach all of my students when that happens in my classroom.

How do I know it works? One particular year, I had a student that chose the basic group every day for the first two weeks. She knew the content, but was struggling with school in general. She was very quiet and kept to herself. On one particular day, one of the advanced students failed to watch our video lesson. He knew he needed to be part of the basic group so that he could develop the basic understanding first. As I started with these two in the basic group, the rest of the class worked with a few students making fun of the young man. As I walked over to address the individuals and have a conversation, I turned back to the two individuals working in the basic group. I was shocked by what I saw - the young woman was actually teaching and demonstrating to the young man. 

She could see a young man struggling - struggling with the content and with being made fun of. Yet, she chose to show compassion through a helping hand. And this young man actually realized she was much smarter than she 'appeared' to be. As the weeks went by, I watched the young man often as the young lady for suggestions and to check his work. You see, she chose compassion to deal with the moment. In return, the young man displayed the same compassion he was offered to others. It was a teachable moment that I could not have planned.

"Life is full of choices," I concluded with the group of faculty I was with. "What I watched happen that day helped me to choose to continue fostering a classroom environment that learned more than math." And while I'm not trying to imply that more compassion would have prevented any events from ever happening, I am suggesting that we can help our students see and understand that everyone has their own unique story. The more we take the time to listen and try to understand someone's story, the better we serve each other in true, genuine compassion.